Chapter 156 The False Alliance Part 3
The fields ran for miles, broken only by the husks of old mills and the occasional dead animal, half-eaten by chain-walkers or worse. Daisy forced them onward, even when Griff started to lag, even when Delia had to be half-carried.
Oliver caught up to Daisy at a ruined mile marker. “You know they’re following us,” he said.
“I know.”
He fell in step. “We could split up. Make them choose.”
Daisy shook her head. “No more splitting. Not after last time.”
Oliver touched her arm, gently. “You can’t save everyone, Pest.”
She wanted to laugh, but it hurt too much. “Watch me.”
They pushed north, following the old canal. At noon, the heat was enough to bring the stink of rot off the water. Daisy thought she saw something moving on the far bank, but when she looked again, it was gone.
By dusk, they reached a line of standing stones, the ground around them pitted and burned. Someone had left a warning here—human skulls set on posts, each with the daisy symbol painted on it.
Daisy felt the chain in her blood react, the scars pulsing like a second heart.
“We can’t stay here,” Xeris said.
“We won’t,” Daisy promised. She looked at Delia, who was awake but glassy-eyed, at Griff, who clung to her coat with both hands.
They crossed the warning and kept walking.
Tension hung thick in the air as midnight approached, each shadow along their route stretching into the uncertainty of nightfall. Every sound seemed magnified: the rustle of wind-blown stubble, the uneven cadence of exhausted footsteps, and the distant call of unseen night creatures. Daisy scanned the darkness ahead, senses straining for any hint of danger, and caught herself gripping the chain at her side with increasing force. Anxiety rippled through the group, palpable in the quickened pace and sidelong glances. Then, just before midnight, the attack came.
Daisy heard the footfalls, the clink of metal. She spun, saw three figures—Veilseekers, faces hidden, moving silently and fast. Xeris lunged at the nearest, claws out, but they caught him with a net of blue fire, pinning him to the earth.
Oliver went for his knife, but the second figure had a whip, crackling with chain magic. It wrapped his wrist, yanking him off his feet.
The third came for Daisy. She ducked the first swing, grabbed a rock, and drove it into the attacker’s face. The mask shattered, revealing a mouthful of metal teeth. The Veilseeker bit at her, but Daisy twisted, breaking its jaw with a crunch.
She felt the chain in her arms flare, the scars on her neck burning cold. The Veilseeker smelled it, recoiled.
Daisy didn’t hesitate. She smashed its head against the stone, over and over, until it stopped moving.
She staggered up, blood running down her arm. Oliver was wrestling the second attacker, but losing—he was down on one knee, the whip around his neck.
Xeris had broken the net, but was tangled with the first Veilseeker, both rolling in the dirt, claws and knives flashing.
Delia lay on the ground, unconscious.
Griff was gone.
Daisy grabbed the dead Veilseeker’s chain and wrapped it around her arm. She charged Oliver’s attacker, whipped the chain at its legs, and pulled it off balance. Oliver slipped free, kicked the Veilseeker in the ribs, then finished it with a knife to the throat.
Xeris slammed the last attacker’s head into the ground, hard enough to crack the skull. He looked at Daisy, face spattered with blood, and smiled.
“Nice work,” he said.
Daisy ignored him. She ran to Delia, checked her pulse. Still alive.
She looked around, heart racing.
“Where’s the boy?” she yelled.
No answer.
She found him behind a stone, hands over his head. He looked up at her, face blank.
“You okay?” Daisy asked.
He nodded, but she could tell it wasn’t true.
She hauled him up, then dragged Delia to her feet.
“We move,” she said.
Oliver and Xeris collected the chain and the weapons. They didn’t argue.
They walked until sunrise. Daisy kept Griff close, never letting him out of arm’s reach.
At the edge of a burnt forest, they stopped. Daisy sat Delia down, checked the wound. It was leaking, but not gushing. Maybe she’d live. Daisy wasn’t sure she cared anymore.
Oliver wrapped a blanket around Delia’s shoulders, his care for her evident despite the tension shadowing his movements. Turning to Daisy, he brushed a strand of hair from her face, his fingers lingering as if uncertain whether to offer comfort or to remind her of the unresolved distance between them.
“You could run,” he said, voice low. “Start over. Leave us behind.”
She shook her head. “Then who would you have to blame when it goes bad?”
He smiled, the old smile. “Guess I’d have to learn to blame myself.”
Daisy wanted to kiss him. She didn’t.
Xeris watched from a distance, never blinking.
The world around them was empty, the fields silent. Yet Daisy felt the chain in her blood, steady now, transformed from curse into promise through the very actions that had secured her group’s survival. For so long, she had carried it like a wound, something forced upon her, sharp-edged and hungry. However, tonight marked a profound reckoning: by wielding the chain to defend those she could not bear to lose, Daisy realized that its dangers were inextricable from its power to protect. This revelation brought into focus a central paradox—the very source of her deepest fear had, through necessity, become the foundation of her strength. The chain remained dangerous, still tied to all that she distrusted in herself, yet she now recognized that enduring hardship and accepting risk were intertwined with her capacity to lead, to shield, and ultimately to preserve what mattered most. In embracing the burden she once abhorred, Daisy confronted the complex reality that survival demanded not only sacrifice, but also the integration of her gifts and flaws. The chain was no longer merely a symbol of suffering, but a testament to resilience—and, in saving her family, Daisy found a measure of acceptance in the very force she had most feared.
She looked at her found family—broken, scarred, but alive.
She stood, faced the horizon.
“Let’s see what we find,” she said.
They walked on, into the future, into the world that would not let them go.